Burn for Me

“They said ASAP,” Bern said.

“Did it sound routine?”

“No.”

Damn it. “Don’t tell Mom or Grandma.”

He nodded. “They’ll just stress.”

“Yes. I’ll call you as soon as I find out what this is about. Hopefully we just forgot to file some form or something.”

I was almost to the door when he called, “Nevada? John Rutger’s wife wired the money. A thousand dollars, as agreed.”

“Good,” I said and escaped. I needed to brush my hair, make myself presentable, and hightail it across town to the glass towers.

Really, how bad could it be?

Chapter 2

The asymmetrical glass tower of Montgomery International Investigations rose above the neighboring office buildings like a shark fin of blue glass. Twenty-five stories tall, it gleamed with hundreds of tinted cobalt windows. It was meant to impress and fill you with awe at House Montgomery’s magnificence. I tried to scrounge up some awe but got only anxiety instead.

I walked through the door to the gleaming elevator, passing through a metal detector. The message from Montgomery said seventeenth floor, so I entered the elevator when the doors whooshed open, pushed the button with 17 on it, and waited as the car shot upward with a whisper.

What the heck could they possibly want?

The doors opened, revealing a wide space punctuated by a receptionist’s desk made of polished stainless steel tubes. At least twenty-five feet separated the glossy dark blue floor and the white ceiling. I stepped out before the elevator closed. The walls were pure white, but the enormous wall of cobalt glass windows behind the receptionist turned the daylight pale blue, as if we were under water. It all felt ultramodern, pristine, and slightly soulless. Even the snow-white orchids on the receptionist’s desk did nothing to add any warmth to the space. MII might as well have wallpapered the place with money and been done with it.

The receptionist looked up at me. Her face was flawless, pale brown, with big blue eyes and artfully contoured pale pink lips. Her tomato red hair was wrapped in an impeccable French twist. I could see each one of her long eyelashes, and not one had as much as a hint of a clump. She wore a white dress that really wanted to be a sleeve.

The receptionist blinked at my bruised face. “May I help you?”

“I have an appointment with Augustine Montgomery. My name is Nevada Baylor.” I smiled.

The receptionist rose. “Follow me.”

I followed. She was probably the same height as me barefoot, but her heels added about six inches. She clicked her way around the curving wall.

“How long does it take?” I asked.

“I’m sorry?”

“How long does it take you to get dressed for work in the morning?”

“Two and a half hours,” she said.

“Do they pay you overtime for that?”

She stopped before a wall of frosted glass. The white feathers of frost moved and slid across the surface in hypnotic pattern. Here and there a fine thread of pure gold shone and melted. Wow.

A section of the wall slid aside. The receptionist looked at me. I stepped through the opening into a vast office. We must’ve been in a corner of the fin, because the wall to the left and straight ahead consisted of blue glass. A white, ultramodern desk grew seamlessly out of the floor. Behind the desk sat a man in a suit. His head was lowered as he read something on a small tablet, and all I could see was a thick head of dark blond hair styled into a short and no doubt expensive haircut.

I approached and stood by a white chair in front of the desk. Good suit, in that color between grey and true black people sometimes call gunmetal.

The man looked up at me. Sometimes people with talent in illusion minimized their physical flaws with their magic. Judging by his face, Augustine Montgomery was a Prime. His features were perfect, in the way Greek statues were perfect, the lines of his face masculine and crisp but never brutish. Clean-shaven, with a strong nose and a firm mouth, he had the type of beauty that made you stare. His skin nearly glowed, and his green eyes stabbed at you with sharp intelligence from behind nearly invisible eyeglasses. He probably had to have protective detail when he left the building to fend off all the sculptors who wanted to immortalize him in marble.

The glasses were a masterful touch. Without them, he’d be a god on a cloud, but the hair-thin frames let him keep one foot on the ground with us mere mortals.

“Mr. Montgomery,” I said. “My name is Nevada Baylor. You wanted to see me?”

Montgomery valiantly ignored the purple tint of bruises on my face. “Sit down, please.” He pointed to the chair.

I sat.

“I have an assignment for you.”

In the five years they’d owned us, they had never given us an assignment. Please let it be something minor . . .

“We’d like you to apprehend this man.” He slid a photograph across the desk. I leaned forward.

Adam Pierce looked back at me with his crazy eyes.

“Is this a joke?”

“No.”

I stared at Montgomery.

“In light of recent events, the Pierce family is concerned about Adam’s welfare. They would like us to bring him in. Uninjured. Since you are our subsidiary, we feel you’re perfectly suited to this task. Your portion of the fee will amount to fifty thousand dollars.”

I couldn’t believe it. “We’re a tiny family firm. Look at our records. We aren’t bounty hunters. We do small-time insurance fraud investigations and cheating spouse cases.”

“It’s time to expand your repertoire. You’re showing a ninety percent success rate with your cases. You have our complete confidence.”

We showed a 90 percent success rate because I didn’t take a case unless I knew we could handle it. “He’s a Prime pyrokinetic. We don’t have the manpower.”

Montgomery frowned slightly, as if bothered. “I’m showing one full-time and five part-time employees. Call your people in and concentrate on it.”

“Have you checked the DOBs on those part-time employees? Let me save you the trouble: three of them are under the age of sixteen, and one is barely nineteen. They are my sisters and cousins. You’re asking me to go after Adam Pierce with children.”

Montgomery clicked the keys on his keyboard. “It says here your mother is a decorated army veteran.”

“My mother was critically injured in 1995 during operations in Bosnia. She was captured and put in a hole in the ground for two months with two other soldiers. She was presumed dead and rescued by pure chance, but she suffered permanent damage to her left leg. Her top speed is five miles per hour.”